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"The picture! that faded-out sketch, fit only for the garret?" "Yes. To you and to most people surveying it, it is just what you say and nothing more. But to the initiated few pray Heaven they may have been few it is writing, conveying secret instructions.
Watkins, Daddy," and she directed her father's attention to the faded-out lady. "Ahem! I am glad to see you, Miss Peckham and Mrs. Watkins," Mr. Day said, bowing in that nice way of his that Janice so much admired. Even with a blacking brush in one hand and a can of stove polish in the other, Mr. Broxton Day was very much the gentleman.
"I do not wish it now. And, Mrs. Watkins." "Yes, Mr. Day?" simpered the faded-out lady. "I wish it distinctly understood that Janice is to give her complete attention to her school work between dinner and bedtime, unless she should chance to have more freedom during those hours than is usual. She will assist you as you may have need after school, and even in the morning before she goes to school.
The faded-out lady smiled feebly. "I am always willing to do as far as I can," she sighed. "The work for three people can't be so much. I am perfectly willing to try, Mr. Day. I'm sure nothin' could be fairer than that." Daddy and Janice looked at each other for an instant. It flashed through both their minds that the faded-out lady did not sound very encouraging.
He laughed: "Oh yes, a poor little fragmentary, faded-out reproduction of their sentiment which is 'as moonlight unto sunlight and as water unto wine, when compared with the real thing.
But I'm glad now we didn't have any of those nice things, 'cause I shall like Aunt Polly's all the better not being used to 'em, you see. Just as it is when the PRETTY hair-ribbons come in the barrels after a lot of faded-out brown ones. My! but isn't this a perfectly beautiful house?" she broke off fervently, as they turned into the wide driveway.
"I just believe," she thought, going on her way, "that that faded-out little woman is a book agent and will want to sell daddy a set of books he'll never in this world read." But in getting dinner and tidying up the dining room and living room, Janice forgot all about Mrs. Sophronia Watkins. Janice was working very hard these days much harder than any girl of her age should work.
"If your pa lets you sit up till all hours, so that you're not fit for anything in the morning, should I be blamed?" complained the faded-out lady. "I'm sure I have enough to do every day, and all day. I have got to have some help on Saturdays and that is all there is to it."
"Why er yes; that will be all right," Janice's father said, though a bit doubtfully. "It would scarcely do to consider you, Mrs. Watkins, in the same category as the ordinary help Janice and I have had." "I am glad you see it that way," said the faded-out lady. And she was quite colorless at the moment. It was evident that the rouge and lip-stick were used only on important occasions.
The faded-out old town clerk looked Jack all over when he asked to see the duplicate of a certain deed, remarking, as he led the way to the Hall of Records, it was under a table in the back room, "Reckon there's somethin' goin' on jedgin' from the way you New Yorkers is lookin' into ore lands up here. There come a lawyer only last month from a man named Breen, huntin' up this same property."
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